N0T1ME: It's About Time
by McBoy Fly
Summary: No one has seen heads or tails of Dr. Emmett Brown in months. Marty McFly, normal 80s teen, is worried about his friend, and so is Emma Brown, The Doc's granddaughter from the year 2016. After failing to stop an estate sale from happening, the two teens have almost given up hope completely until the DeLorean mysteriously appears, driverless, in the driveway outside Doc's garage. AU
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Last updated June 25. Rewrote some parts, fixed some minor grammatical errors and hopefully got rid of those darned comma splices I'm so prone to. Technically my first story, but not the first installment in my Back to the Future series; N0T1ME. This is actually what I consider Part II of the series. Part I will detail how Emma came to be stuck in 1986 in the first place. As per my original note, I love this game more than almost anything, and fourth-wall breaking is one of my favorite things about adventure games, but it just...I don't know...doesn't feel right for Marty. He's no Guybrush Threepwood and it makes me feel bad that he's all alone, so I gave him a friend to bounce his sass off of! Also, rewrote a tiny bit of this to include Jennifer because in the whole Game vs. comic series battle, the game is better detail-wise, but the Citizen Brown comic says Jennifer gave Marty the clothes he wears to 1931 and that's just too sweet to not to include here.

* * *

"Come on, give him another couple of weeks to come back and get this all sorted out, please!" a teenage girl cried, trying to pull a first edition of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein away from the tall and well-dressed figure of George McFly.

"I'm sorry, Emma, but the bank has already put this off as long as they possibly could. It would be very unlikely for Dr. Brown to return now, and even if he did, there's just no feasible way for him to pay off all of his debts in a timely manner. Now, let go of the book, please." She released her grip on the book, and slumped off, defeated and upset.

She plopped down on the bed in the corner to become engrossed in an episode of the Cosmos with Carl Sagan on the TV. She petted a black and white puppy curled up beside her and sighed before stating, "Marty's not going to be happy about this."

Almost as though on cue, Marty burst in through the side door of the garage. "Dad! Are we too late to stop the..." Marty paused for a moment as he stopped short just inside the door, "Sale?"

His father nodded and waved a finger as he approached Marty, "Better late than never. You wouldn't BELIEVE how much rare stuff there is around here!"

Marty clenched his jaw as he walked forward, pointing a finger at his father. "That's Doc's stuff! The bank has no right to—"

"Now, son, I know you're upset. But your friend's been gone for months, and the city really seems hellbent on using his land for that new parking garage, and—hey, is that a first edition Jules Verne?"

Marty sighed as his father strayed away to examine another box of first edition novels and other rare out-of-prints, "It's just not fair. But at least things can't get any worse." He heard someone drop a coin into the old jukebox in the corner. It started playing Huey Lewis & The News' 1985 hit 'Back In Time' and he saw that it was Biff Tannen who had turned the jukebox on. He was wearing Doc's old mind-reading helmet, but had clearly decided to re-purpose it as a beer helmet, an idea that Marty wasn't thrilled with.

"Hi, Marty!" Biff said, setting the mind-reading helmet back where he found it and turning off the jukebox before walking up to Marty. "Come to see if the old crackpot left any buried treasure?"

The word 'crackpot' set Marty on edge. He hated it when people disrespected Doc. He was a little eccentric, and Marty was no stranger to his unusual habits and his reclusive nature, but he knew, as did Jennifer and Emma, that Doc was a cool guy. The rest of the town, unfortunately, had never been able to really move past the suspicious circumstances of the Brown mansion's demise, and then came the rumors when they connected the scientist who had worked on the Manhattan Project to the weird weather experiment that had damaged their clock tower and then to the mansion's destruction. Doc's reputation was all but demolished in Hill Valley.

Using all of his self-discipline in an attempt not to chew out Biff right there, though he really wanted to, Marty replied calmly, "Nah. I guess I'm just...remembering." He knelt down by Einstein's bowl. "I miss Einstein..." He said to himself. He stood up again and glanced at Emma, who was absorbed in her TV program.

Emma Brown was a time traveler, just like him. She was Doc's 17-going-on-18 year old granddaughter, from the year 2016. Like Doc, she had a penchant for science. Unlike Doc, her interest in science was dealt more in theoretical practices than in the hands-on applied sciences that came with being an inventor. To Marty's delight, she shared many of his interests in music, cars, movies, and video games. Emma became trapped in 1986 in March, just after Marty had come so dangerously close to giving up hope that his friend would ever return, and they'd quickly become good friends, able to bond over time travel shenanigans and their similar tastes in entertainment.

"Hey, Emma."

"Oh, hey Marty."

"Whatcha watchin'?" He gave the dog on the bed a quick ruffle behind the ears, causing him to stir slightly, then settle right back into his deep slumber.

"The Cosmos: Journeys Through Space and Time. Kind of wishing Carl Sagan wouldn't talk so much about time travel, considering how little he knows about it since he hasn't done it..."

Marty turned to watch part of the show, and sure enough he caught the last part of Carl Sagan's monologue, "...does nature contrive it, so that even with a time machine you can't intervene...to prevent your own conception, for example..." He looked over at his father, who was busy taking inventory on what had been sold so far, and cracked a smile as he remembered how he had almost prevented himself and his siblings from being born, all because he had intervened with his parents' first meeting.

"...Yeah... So, listen. I want to keep an eye out for anything important that Doc might've left behind that he wouldn't want to leave the lab."

Emma nodded, "So like, every single thing in here that's been marked for sale?" She spread her arms out, gesturing to the surroundings of the lab.

"Yeah, but...this is ah-a really specific thing that I'm looking for, Em."

"Okay. Could _you_ be more specific?"

"It's Doc's notebook with all of his research concerning the time machine and the flux capacitor. I haven't seen it since the night Doc and I...I mean—"

"I think I know the one you're talking about, but I haven't seen it since before I went back in time. And even then, it was locked up tight in the Insti—Eh, never mind. I'm sure it's around here somewhere. Let's see if we can find it."

"First I gotta do something real quick." Marty said, then headed over to talk to his father. "Hey Dad, who's running this sale, anyway?"

"Oh, that'd be me, son!"

"You? Why?" Marty shook his head in disbelief.

"Well, once it became apparent that the bank was going through with the sale, I volunteered to oversee the event to insure that Doc's stuff would be treated with a modicum of respect. Isn't that right, Biff?"

"You got it, Mr. McFly!" Biff replied from the other part of the garage.

"What's Biff doing here? He wasn't a friend of Doc's!"

"It's a public sale, Marty. Everyone's allowed..." George's face shifted from a relaxed, but tired expression to a look that hinted at slight defeat, shaking his head. "Even Biff."

Marty was not about to give up defending his friend's honor just because it didn't _seem_ like he'd be returning to 1986 anytime soon. He spat back at his father, "I'm telling you, this sale is a joke! Doc's only been gone for a few months, and I happen to know—"

"Yes, you've told us. He's not dead. He's on a trip. Let's say you're right. Have you considered that this trip may not have been...entirely voluntary?" his dad replied in annoyance, then changed his tone back to one that felt a little like fatherly condescension. "I hate to say it, but Doc's run up some pretty sizable debts around here. Maybe he's just hiding from his creditors."

Marty tensed up again and fired back, "You got Doc wrong! Sure, maybe he's not so good with money...that's just 'cause his mind's always on bigger things. But he's still a straight-up guy. He'd never run away from his problems!"

George McFly nodded, "Well, you know him better than I do, son. But the bank IS within its rights to sell off his stuff. Perhaps you should find some things to remember him by...before Biff grabs them all."

"I'll keep looking around. Thanks, Dad."

They stopped to talk to Biff, to Marty's chagrin, but Emma wanted to be polite, and thought maybe they could somehow persuade him to leave the room while they searched it.

"Hey, Biff..."

"Hi, Marty!"

"What are you doing here?" It was a hollow question, and Marty really didn't care about the answer, but he was humoring Em.

"Well, I was as bummed as anyone to hear the old nutcase had kicked it..."

"He's not—" _Dead. Or a nutcase._ Marty thought, but Biff cut him off before he could finish the sentence.

"But I'm not above picking through the remains! You know what they say, 'don't look a gift horse in the butt'!"

"It's mouth, Biff." Emma replied.

"Don't look a gift mouth in the butt? What are you on?"

She sighed, rolling her eyes, "Nothing."

Marty tried once more, unsuccessfully, to convince Biff that Doc was alive. "Doc's not dead, you know. He's still around."

"Oh really? Do you SEE him around here?"

"Never mind."

"What's this?" Emma asked, studying the model of Hill Valley that was sitting on the ping pong table in the back room.

"Doc built this model of downtown Hill Valley way back in 1955. The clock tower in the courthouse even works." he paused for a moment, looking behind the courthouse, and seeing that the back layer of cardboard is starting to peel apart. "What the—Is that Doc's notebook in there?"

Before he could get any closer, Biff suddenly grabbed the cardboard courthouse away from them. "Hey, that looks just like the courthouse! You have to hand it to the old coot, he was good with his hands."

"Biff, can I see that a minute?"

"This'll look great in my fish tank! Give the ol' carp something new to nibble on."

Emma cut in to try and help Marty. "Mind if we see that model courthouse for just a second?"

"I have to get something out of it," Marty added.

"Like what, a 'not guilty' verdict?"

The teens looked at each other with pained expressions in response to this, which Biff misinterpreted as confusion.

"That was a joke."

"Oh. Ha. But seriously, can I have it?"

"Nah, I think I'll hold onto it," Biff taunted.

Marty glared at him. "Give it here, Biff!" he tried to grab the model, but Biff jerked it away, causing the roof to pop open and reveal the notebook.

"Well, well, lookit what we got here! Looks like PLANS for something... What's a 'flux catheter'?"

"it's none of your business! Doc asked me to—"

"Brown's wormfood, kid. But this looks like it might be worth something. Ha!"

They walked back into the other part of the garage, by Marty's father. "Oh, great." Emma groaned.

"We've gotta get that notebook back from Biff!"

"I don't suppose he'll give it up if we ask him to?"

"Em, this is _Biff_ we're talking about."

"Right."

"Hey Dad? Why's my guitar got a price tag on it?"

George almost immediately regretted setting the box on the counter. "Sorry, son. Must've been an overzealous clerk. Just pick it up, I'll iron things out with the bank."

"Let's make some noise..." he turned up all the dials on the amplifier controls, but rather than crank them all the way up, he only put them at about halfway, about to play when Biff walked in from the other room, laughing. "Here's an oldie, but a goodie-"

"-Ha ha ha! Hey, look. It's Chuck _Butthead_!" Biff yanked the guitar away from him. "I'll show ya how it's done." Evidently the last straw for Marty, he turned up the dials to full blast as Biff readied the guitar pick. "Now watch me blow the lid off this joint!"

"Whatever you say..." Marty replied.

The light glinted off the guitar pick as Biff held it in the air momentarily. When he brought it down to strike a dissonant power chord, Emma and Marty covered their ears and flinched as the power of the massive amplifier launched Biff clear across the room and into a shelving complex stocked with paint cans, blueprints, and other assorted papers. Emma's puppy was startled awake from his nap by the noise and let out a high-pitched whine. Emma turned her attention to comforting the dog while Marty retrieved the notebook from the model courthouse. He opened it up to the page with the flux capacitor sketch on it, and glanced at Doc's 'to-do list' for October 26th, 1985.

"Aw, Doc... Where are you?" He heard the explosive crackling and boom of a time machine exiting temporal displacement from outside, his eyes widened in an unusual mix of complete bewilderment and a sudden glimmer of hope. He ran outside, Emma and her dog following along right behind him.

* * *

He hesitated once he got out to the parking lot. Looking at the newly appeared car in disbelief, he slowly approached the driver's side of the DeLorean.

"Doc...?" He reached out to touch the time machine, but jumped back when the cooling vents released a white cloud of vapor into the air. He tried to reach out again, recoiling once his hand touched the door handle. He looked to his hands, the burning sensation of the ice tickling his fingertips with numbness.

Emma winced as he recoiled, "What—what, is it hot?"

Marty shook his head, "It's cold. Damn cold." _Talk about déjà vu..._ he thought. He lifted the door handle with his foot and opened the door, revealing Einstein the dog sitting in the driver's seat. "Einstein! Where'd you come from, boy? Didn't you bring Doc with you?"

Emma opened the passenger side door as Marty sat down in the driver's seat. "So this is the DeLorean?" she asked, joining him in the car.

"I guess so, yeah. It sure LOOKS like the DeLorean, at least."

"What's this?" She held up a tape recorder that read 'Marty!' on it in big bold letters, handing it to him.

Marty pressed the playback button. "Marty!"

"Gah!" He yelped, dropping the tape recorder.

"Marty, if you're hearing this recording, then the DeLorean's automatic retrieval feature is a resounding success!"

"'Automatic retrieval'...?"

"In case of my failure to return to the DeLorean within an allotted amount of time, I've programmed the time machine to jump to these four-dimensional coordinates without me. As you may know, time travel is an inherently risky activity, and despite my elaborate precautions there's always the possibility I could land in trouble sometime. And that sometime is now! Or then! Or maybe later!"

Marty face lit up in alarm. "He's in trouble!"

Emma noticed a shoe on the floor of the passenger's side and picked it up, looking it over as they continued to listen to the recording.

"Marty, you've come to my rescue in the past. Or, was it the future? Anyway, I'm counting on you to do it again. Please take the DeLorean back—or forward—to whenever it is I'm stuck in time. When you get there I'm sure you'll figure out what to do."

"That's it?! Aren't you going to tell me _when_ that is?"

"Just go to the date marked under the 'Last Time Departed' header on the time circuit read outs. Good luck!"

"Right, right. Last time departed, last time departed..." He quickly turned the time circuits on, but to his dismay, the last time departed header appeared to be glitching. "Aw geez, c'mon...c'cmon...c'mon...crap! Oh great, how am I supposed to find him now?"

"Maybe this can tell us something."

"Where'd you find that?"

"On the floor. It's a women's shoe."

"Huh. Weird. I guess it might be Clara's."

"Or it might be a clue. Let's see what Einie and Dee make of it, just to be sure."

"What do you know about this shoe, Einie?" Marty held out the shoe for Einstein to smell.

"You want a whiff, Dee?" The younger dog barked, sniffed the shoe, then quickly took off with Einie toward the town square.

"Great Scott! I think they're on to something!" Marty exclaimed.

* * *

"Okay, NOW we're getting somewhere."

"How's this supposed to lead us to Doc, guys?" Emma said to the dogs.

"Who goes there?!" An elderly woman holding a megaphone shouted at the kids from inside her apartment. Einie and Dee started barking angrily until Marty and Emma managed to quiet them down. "Just as I suspected; hooligans!"

"We're not hooligans, ma'am. We're uh, teenagers!"

"I wasn't born yesterday, young man. Aren't you the miscreant who skateboards through the town square every morning between eight and eight-thirty, in a decidedly unpunctual manner?"

"Um, yeah?"

"All skateboarders are hooligans. It's a fact. Look it up. And YOU!"

Emma pointed to herself, confused. "Me?"

"Yes! You're the hooligan who lets that mangy mutt of yours run loose in the city. Leash laws exist for a reason, young lady!"

"Hey!" she indignantly exclaims, "Dee never strays more than five feet away from me at any time, on or off leash! I _trained_ him!"

"With those "treats" you're so fond of, I expect? Try actually training your animal, ungrateful yuppie!"

Marty thought back to what the button had said. "'E. Strickland'... You wouldn't happen to be related to Vice Principal Strickland, would you ma'am?"

"Not that it's any of your BUSINESS, but I'm his sister, Edna. Oh, and you're one of those McFly slackers, aren't you?!"

"Yes! What's old man Strick—I mean, what else has your brother been saying about me?"

"Nothing that I couldn't have deduced for myself, slacker!"

"Can you let us in? We've got something to show you!"

"What is it? Let me see."

Marty held up the shoe that had led him and Emma there in the first place.

"A shoe? Now, what would I want with a—Huh?" Edna gasped. "Stay there!" She disappeared from the window and reappeared holding the shoe's match. The same style and color, but it had approximately fifty years more wear than its time-traveling counterpart, and it didn't fool Edna that there was something peculiar about at least one of those dogs and the almost brand-new shoe that made her wonder. And she wasn't about to let those hooligans run off with her shoe. She wandered away from the window again and went down to open the big iron gate so they could enter the apartment. Einstein started barking again, and Dee followed the older dog's lead. Edna made it back to her window once more, bellowing out of her megaphone. "Leave those CREATURES outside."

"Sorry, Einstein." Marty said. Einstein gave the boy an almost disapproving look as he walked up the stairs, and turned to lie down.

Emma patted her dog reassuringly, "Be good, Dee. Stay, boys." She wasn't sure they were really listening to her, but they were sitting quietly, and she decided that was good enough.

* * *

"Took ya long enough!"

"Um, there's a lot of stairs..."

"To return the shoe, I mean. I lost it AGES ago. You can put it down next to the other one..." Marty complied, dropping the new shoe next to the old one. "There, so neat and orderly. I suppose you two'll be wanting some sort of reward now."

"What? No, I—"

"All I've got is tea and candy... I'm sorry I called you hooligans. I try not to jump to conclusions, but after all, nine out of ten people in this city ARE hooligans. It's a fact. Look it up." The old woman walked into the kitchen and put a tea kettle on the stove. Marty noticed that she had forgotten to actually turn the stove on, and tried to call attention to this when she cut him off.

"Uh—"

"Have a seat, children." Edna said. Marty and Emma looked around, but it seemed every seat in the small apartment was occupied by piles of newspapers. Judging by the food and water bowls, Edna had cats, which made sitting on the floor seem like a bad idea to the two dog-loving teens. They insisted that they were fine with standing, stating that they wouldn't be staying too long and only wanted to ask the old woman a few questions. "Hey! You kids, put out those cigarettes!" Edna shouted out her window to two twenty-something year old men who were casually chatting across the street.

"What's with all the newspapers?" asked Emma.

"This is my personal archive. I've got every issue of the Hill Valley Telegraph ever published!"

"Get out. Every single issue?" Marty said.

"From 1871 to the present! If it happened in Hill Valley, you can find it in my stacks!"

Emma pondered for a moment. "Why do you need all these newspapers?"

"Isn't that the library's job?" added Marty.

"Libraries? Feh! Have you seen the smut they keep in their magazine racks?"

"Mind if we look through these newspapers?"

"Don't touch those. My newspapers are in pristine condition and meticulously organized. I'm not about to let some street punks get jam all over them."

"Jam?" Emma turned to Marty, who examined his hands as if expecting them to be covered in jam at that moment. He shrugged in response to her.

"Did I imagine it or did she forget to turn on the burner in the kitchen?"

Marty nods, recalling that she had indeed set everything up, but had forgotten to turn the stove top on. "Miss Strickland, about your tea... You forgot to to turn on the-"

"YOU!" Marty turned around to face Edna, but saw that she was yelling out her window again. "It's spelled with a 'U', you illiterate vandal!" He shook his head in disbelief.

Trying to deal with Edna's senile mind in a way that would enable the teens to get what they needed was exhausting to say the least, but they finally learned that the video rental shop was built on the grounds of the old speakeasy in 1932, a year after the speakeasy arson had taken place. After that, Marty had tried messing with Edna's old radiator to make it a slightly more comfortable temperature. It started whistling, which Edna had mistaken for the kettle boiling over. Seizing their chance with the crotchety old woman out of the room, Marty and Emma started searching through the stack of newspapers until they found the stack dated 1931.

"Let's see...'Ground Broken on Site of Former Speakeasy,' 'Singer Vanishes,' 'Soup Kitchen Exposed,' 'Hill Valley Expo Delights Crowd'... Here we go, 'Speakeasy Arsonist Slain'...'Legal procedure gave way to old-fashioned vengeance last night when a mob descended on the Hill Valley Police Station. The suspect in the speakeasy arson case, a drifter known as Carl Sagan, was pulled from his'...Carl Sagan?"

"Wait a minute, the astrophysicist from the Cosmos?" Asked Emma, "My apologies for saying he didn't know anything about time travel, I guess."

Marty turned the newspaper over and examined the mugshot of the arsonist, both his and Emma's suspicions confirmed. "It's Doc! Killed by a mob..? Oh, what's the date?"

"June 14th, 1931." Emma read under the dateline on the paper.

"Jeez... I gotta rescue him!" Marty turned to bolt, but was slowed by the newspaper wall.

Foreseeing nothing good coming from Marty inadvertently loosening the tightly wedged newspaper stack, Emma let out a nervous squeak of "Marty, wait—!" in an attempt to stop him from passing so close to the structurally compromised wall of stacked newspapers, but the slightest brush of movement against the stack proved to be just enough to send it toppling over, to Edna's disdain.

"My newspapers!"

"Sorry, Miss Strickland! Here, let us—"

"No! You've gotten my history out of order! Oh, do you know how long it'll take to fix what you've done? Aaagh, get out, get out, get out!" Marty and Emma wasted no time fleeing from the enraged old woman, who was shouting for police assistance with her megaphone. "Help! Police! I'm being attacked by hooligans!"

* * *

When they arrived back at Doc's garage, they decided to use the Burger King's bathroom to change into some more 1931-appropriate clothing they had picked up from Jennifer's house on their way back from Edna's apartment. Marty had invited Jennifer to come along, but she'd refused, stating that there was no way she was ever getting back in the DeLorean, or anywhere near it. She offered help in her own way, however. She loaned Marty an old outfit of her father's; a simple white shirt and brown pants with a brown vest thrown over to make the whole ensemble seem a little more exciting. For Emma, she let her borrow a dress that had belonged to her mother. It was green with a matching bonnet and shoes, and was well-worn in places but not exceptionally noticeable up close.

"You're not thinking of going alone, are you?" Asked Emma, her arms crossed over her chest as she leaned against the DeLorean.

"Well, that was the plan. But I'm probably not going to be able to convince you not to come, am I?"

"I don't think so. The Brown/Clayton stubbornness and determination streak is strong with me."

"There's not gonna be a lot of room in the car once we find Doc. I'm taking Einie with me."

"Make a second trip if you have to. That, or I'll squish myself behind the seat when we rescue Doc. Or hide in the trunk, as long as you drive carefully."

"All right...Hey, I meant to ask earlier—Do you still want to go home? I mean, since we have a working time machine."

Emma nodded, "I do, but it can wait until after we rescue Doc."

"Marty!" George McFly beckoned as he came around the side of the garage. "Where've you been, son? And what are you doing in that getup?"

"Um... Didn't you hear? Em and I got the leads in the school play! We're doing..."

"Grapes of Wrath?"

"Right!"

"Oh, Steinbeck! Who are you playing?"

"Um, ah..."

"Never mind, it's better I don't know. I'm sure you know what you're doing, right?"

"I hope so..." Marty sighed.

"Hey, sometimes you've gotta go out on a limb for the ones you love, right? I wish MY dad had understood that. You won't stay away too long?"

He grins, "You'll barely even notice I'm gone."

"Ready to go, Einstein? How about you, Dee?" The dogs barked in agreement as they hopped inside the DeLorean, settling down as Emma slid into the passengers seat.

"Okay, time circuits, on...flux capacitor...uh, fluxy... All right. Okay, If Doc's going to be killed on June 14th, I'll just show up the day before, and get him out!"

"The day before?" Emma inquired.

Marty nodded, "It should be all the time I need to find Doc and get him out of there. The longer we stay in the past, the more time there is for _something_ to go wrong," he explained. "Hope you know what you're doing, Doc..."

Luckily, it was dark by the time they had reached the main highway, and with virtually no traffic on the road that night, it was the ideal place for achieving temporal displacement. Marty looked extra determined as he told Emma to turn the time circuits on and then shifted gears and accelerated the car to 88 miles per hour. They were instantly transported to 1931, but unfortunately were caught in the midst of a high speed mob shootout between who they would soon come to know as Irving Kid Tannen's goons, and the Hill Valley police. With no options to get out of the way, Marty was forced to decelerate with the cop behind him bumping the car's rear end and gesturing to pull over so he could catch the gangsters, who were fast disappearing into the inky night. The cooling vents activated, billowing white vapor at the police officer and causing him to temporarily lose control of his car. He spun out on the side of the road as the DeLorean disappeared into the waning hours of very early morning.

Marty checked the time as they pulled behind a billboard advertising a Car of the Future. Poetic irony, Emma thought, considering they really did have the car of the future. The time was 4:00 AM on June 13th, 1931, and the two teenagers were off on their mission to rescue Doc, starting two miles outside of Hill Valley.

* * *

A/N: Thanks for reading! Please fave and follow if you do like this story, and above all else, review!


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Updated June 26. Fixed some minor spelling and grammar and rewrote more cumbersome sentences throughout. Enjoy!

* * *

Emma had never felt that the sign denoting Hill Valley being only two miles away was accurate. You would reach the city limits in two miles, of course. But the sheer amount of sprawl to the city before you could even consider yourself to be in the downtown area was more like another 3 miles in both 1986 and 2016. While 1930s Hill Valley had grown in population very steadily since the 1880s, most of the space was still taken up by agricultural land that would dissipate by the 1950s to make room for all the new housing developments such as Lyon Estates and Hilldale.

By the time Emma and Marty had made their way to the downtown area, it was light and the streets were alive with townsfolk heading off to work. Einstein and Dee bolted ahead, the kids unable to tell where they had gone.

"Einstein!" Marty called out. "Where'd you go now, boy?"

"Whoa," said Emma. "Why couldn't downtown look this nice in the future?"

He chuckled, "Yeah, I know that feeling."

She gasped as she looked to the park. "They have a gazebo! A real gazebo. Man, that would be such a nice place for the Pinheads to play if it still existed in the future."

He followed Emma as they strayed around the town square, taking in the sight of several snappily-dressed men who Emma recognized had to be gangsters, so they kept their distance. Their awe was stopped abruptly when Marty found he was almost hit by a stranger's car again. He had just hastily backed out of the way when they heard a slightly familiar voice beckoning to them. "You two! Excuse me, you two kids!"

"Who, us?"

"You're the only two kids in the street. And I'm looking for two 'kid in the street' reactions! Naturally, I assume you know about the fire that destroyed this illegal gin establishment?"

"I—We read about it, yeah."

"What are your opinions on Carl Sagan, the man who had the courage to do what the Feds won't?" The woman readied her pen and notepad. "Namely, rid Hill Valley of the scourge of liquor."

Marty shook his head, "How'd Doc get himself into—"

"'Doc'?" The woman repeated.

"Doc is his nickname. I'm good friends with Carl."

"You are? Really?" she asked in excitement, "Oh, but I need an unbiased opinion for my column. Pretend you don't know him. How would you feel about his heroic act of destruction?"

Marty shook his head again, " There's gotta be some sort of mistake here. Doc...I-I mean...Carl wouldn't do something like that."

"It's amazing the lengths a person will go to when it's a clear-cut matter of right and wrong." she replied in a matter-of-fact tone. "You've got an honest look about you. You DO support the side of righteousness, I trust?"

"Well, I'm not so big on bomb blasts," said Marty.

"Nor am I," Emma added.

"Yes, but this bomb blasted a speakeasy." She walked forward the whole time she was speaking, causing the slightly intimidated teens to back away in response. "The very symbol of lawlessness and corruption that plagues this town. You're all for cleaning up the town, aren't you? Do you have a message for the vicious gangsters who still roam these streets, no doubt plotting to corrupt our citizens with another den of booze, sin, and debauchery?"

"Not really, no..." Emma supplied as her answer.

The woman beamed at her, "that's the spirit! Destroy them with indifference! If we refuse to patronize their wicked exports, they'll soon be exposed for the pathetic wretches they are! And have you any parting words to end my column on, sir?" She addressed Marty.

"Yeah! Tell 'em: 'Go ahead! Make my day...'" he answered.

She continued writing on her notepad as she asked, "Make your day what?"

"Uhh..."

"Never mind. I'll play around with it and see if I can come up with something better, Mr... May I get both your names?"

"Sure! The name's... Michael Corleone."

"And...I'm his colleague, Rose Tyler..."

"Nice to meet you, Mr. Corleone and Miss Tyler. I'm Edna Strickland, columnist writer and editor for the Hill Valley Herald."

Marty tried to think for a minute before speaking, though he wasn't exactly satisfied with what he ended up saying. "I know. We met you back...I mean—"

"We're familiar with your work." Emma finished for him, glancing at him with a slightly scolding expression that was almost as clear as if she had just whispered "seriously?" to him.

"Really? You read my column? How sweet! I know it's just an etiquette column, but I believe it'll lead to bigger and better—" Edna was interrupted then by Einstein, who was pawing at her and barking a warning.

"Einstein! No. Down boy!" Marty grabbed the dog by his collar as Edna dusted some paw prints off herself.

"Is this wretched creature yours? He assaulted me once before!"

"What's got into you?"

"Aggressive dogs must be kept on leash at all times! It's the law. Look it up!" Edna said as she walked off in a huff. She turned back and added as Dee happily bounded past her and up to Emma, "And don't let THAT one get any ideas!"

Marty shook his head. "Doc. I gotta find Doc!"

"I guess this must be where that speakeasy burned down. How'd Doc ever get mixed up in that?"

* * *

"Marty, look!"

"Hill Valley Police Station. Cripes, this place looks old. Even for 1931!" Marty noted.

"So how do we get Doc out of there?"

Marty shrugged, "Psst, Doc!" he whispered in the jail window.

"Marty!" Doc exclaimed happily.

"Doc!"

"And...who is that you've brought with you?" He squinted, trying to place the vaguely recognizable figure of Emma.

"Emma, Doc. She's your granddaughter. From the future."

Emma gave a small wave to her grandfather. "'Sup?"

"Emma? My grand—Great Scott! That's right! You've grown since I saw you last, young lady."

"Well, I was only 11, then," she said.

"You certainly have your father's eyes."

"Thanks, Doc."

"Anyway, what are you doing here?" Doc asked Marty.

"You sent for me, Doc!" he replied.

"I did? When?"

"May 14, 1986!" Emma said.

"198-Of course! The automatic retrieval feature! I'd almost forgotten about that."

"So what's our plan for getting you out of here?"

"Plan? We don't need a plan!"

"We don't?"

"Not in the slightest! The police picked me up for that speakeasy fire a couple weeks ago, but the D.A. hasn't got a case. They're releasing me tomorrow morning!"

"So, basically, we traveled 50 years into the past to...deliver your CAR?" Marty asked.

"Sorry about that, but it's so great to see you both again! We've got a lot of catching up to do."

"Yeah..." Marty trailed off as he and Emma looked at each other with concern.

"You might want to hold off on that, Doc," Said Emma as Marty handed Doc the newspaper from Edna's apartment.

"Great Scott! I'm going to be gunned down by gangsters on the steps of the courthouse!"

"Why would they do that?"

"Guess they didn't approve of my burning down their speakeasy," Doc said.

Marty narrowed his eyes. "Very funny, Doc. Maybe NOW we should come up with a plan?"

"A plan? Of course! But what?"

Marty pondered the question for a moment. "Why don't we tell the authorities?"

Doc shook his head, "Tell them what? That my friends from the future have proof that I'll be murdered tomorrow? They'd ship us ALL off to the loony bin, and trust me, you don't want to see the inside of a 1931 insane asylum!"

"I really don't think we want to see the inside of any asylum in any year..." Emma adds. It's been quite a while, but she still remembers the story Jules told her about the story Doc told him about his 1985!A counterpart being committed to a mental institution and having his mind destroyed by a lobotomy that was no doubt ordered by the powerful and corrupt Biff Tannen in that timeline. She knows that Doc is definitely not kidding about this comment, and she shudders.

"Why don't Em and I take the DeLorean, go back in time to before you were arrested, and stop you from getting caught in the first place?"

"Don't even think about it! Without my unjust incarceration, the events that sent you into the past might never happen, resulting in a paradox of continuum-shattering proportions!"

"Jeez, we've been back together for five minutes, Doc, and you're already talking about the end of the universe!" Marty said. "I've missed that," he adds in lighthearted jest.

"Don't be ridiculous, Marty. I was only referring to the end of the universe as WE know it," Doc replied.

"Well, I suppose we could just get some dynamite and break you out of jail..."

"No, no, that's far too dangerous. Not just to me, but to innocent people in the past. The repercussions could be—that's it!"

"What's it?"

"My rocket-powered drill."

"You have a rocket-powered drill?"

"Not yet. I haven't built it yet!"

Marty shook his head, "You've lost me, Doc."

"Yeah, me too. What rocket-powered drill?" Emma added.

"Listen...a few months ago, my 17 year old self sent in a patent application for a rocket-powered drill. I abandoned the project after I never heard back from the patent office, but the prototype should be nearly complete!"

"Great! I'll just run back to your lab and—"

"No, no I said NEARLY complete! You'll need me to help you finish it."

"How the hell am I supposed to sneak a half-finished rocket-powered drill into your cell?"

"Not ME-me! 1931 me!" Doc exclaimed.

"Waitaminute, Doc... You want me to convince your 1931 self to build a rocket–powered drill to break you out of jail?" Marty repeated the plan back to him, hoping it would sound a little less crazy if he did so. Unfortunately, it just confirmed how bad an idea he thought this was.

It was Emma's turn to shake her head in complete disbelief. "How are we supposed to convince your younger self to build the rocket drill? Just tell him that we need it to break his older self out of jail?"

Doc quickly dismissed this. "Absolutely not! Whatever you do, you can't tell my younger self anything about time travel! I won't come up with the inspiration for the flux capacitor for another 24 years!"

"Then what am I supposed to-?" Marty started.

"Just be your charming self," Doc said, calmly. "From what I can remember, I'm a pretty easygoing kid, so enlisting me in a scientific adventure should be a piece of cake!"

"Won't talking to your younger self cause, y'know...irreparable damage to the space-time continuum or something?"

"It should be fine. I've already invented the IDEA of the rocket-drill. You've just got to goad my younger self into finishing the prototype."

"Okay, say Em and I go along with this crazy idea... Where can we find you? I mean, the other you."

"How should I know? It was over 50 years ago! Here, why don't you head on over to the soup kitchen and give my house a call. They'll know where to find me. Just stay away from the soup. It'll cause irreparable damage to your digestive system!"

"How'd you remember this phone number after 50 years?"

"It's a nemonic for a dirty punchline I learned when I was twelve. Now, get to the soup kitchen and find out where I am!"

A police officer walked out of the building at that moment, forcing Doc to duck down and Marty to whistle innocently while Emma pretended to check her nails. They returned to their conversation when they were sure he was gone.

"I guess we'd better get started, then." Emma said.

"Don't worry, Doc. We'll get you out of there in no time." Marty added.

"Oh, I'm not worried. Once you two and my younger self put your heads together, you'll be unstoppable!"

* * *

The soup kitchen was quiet, except for the cook listening to a horse race being broadcast over the radio. At the table closest to the door, a man bearing a striking resemblance to George McFly, Marty's father, was enjoying a bowl of soup. His clothes looked old and rumpled, his vest not even properly buttoned, but he was wearing a fine-looking hat. The kids knew they had more important things to take care of, and paid him no mind, until another man and his accomplice entered the soup kitchen.

"Hey, McFly!" shouted a man who looked an awful lot like Biff Tannen, if Biff had black hair and a mustache, and wore a purple pinstriped suit.

Marty looked over in disbelief, "Biff?" he whispered.

"Kid!"

"Grandpa?!" Marty said, more to himself than anyone else, though Emma heard him.

"That's Mister Tannen to you, Artie. What are you doing here?" the Biff clone asked the man.

Artie replied meekly, "Well, I was getting kind of hungry, so I thought I'd come down here for some free soup..."

"'Just thought I'd come down for some soup' Hello? Hello, anybody home? Think! McFly! Think! The D.A.'s throwing around subpoenas like Babe Ruth."

"I don't think Ruth's a pitcher any more..."

"Shut it. Now, if one of those subpoenas ended up in the hands of my number cruncher, I'd be in a whole lot of trouble. I could even get sent up the river! You wouldn't want that to happen, would you?" Artie hesitated for a moment, as though contemplating how much better off he'd be if he _wasn't_ working for Kid Tannen, but it only lasted a second before Kid asked again, in a more threatening tone. "WOULD YOU?"

"Nooo... Of course not, Kid..."

"All right, that's better. What are you punks looking at?!" he sneered at Marty and Emma.

"Just keep your eyes on the soup, kids." The soup maker added as the kids stood in stunned silence.

"Well?" Kid said, turning back to Arthur.

"Well what?" Artie asked.

"Well what are you still doing here?!"

"Sorry, Kid. I'll just run back to the safe house..." he announced meekly, making an awkward running gesture with his long, lanky arms.

"You do that. And McFly?"

"Yeah?"

"That hat's too flashy for you. You better let me hold onto it." Artie sighed at the loss of his hat. "Now, scram! And don't come out until I give you the all-clear!" When Artie was out of earshot, Kid added, "I swear, if any of you mooks could add two plus two without using your fingers, I'd dump that wimp into the lake."

The soup-making crony responded with an indignant "Hey!"

"Well, I'm off to make myself look irresistible. Don't let anyone burn down the shop while I'm gone."

Trying to shrug off the rough encounter they'd just witnessed between Artie McFly and Kid Tannen, Marty dialed the phone number Doc had given to him. "Brown residence..."

"Um, hi. Do you know where I can find Emmett Brown?"

"Young Master Brown is currently attending to his clerking duties at the courthouse. Who may I say is calling?" Marty quickly hung up the phone without an answer.

"What'd they say?" Emma inquired.

"Some British guy said Doc's working at...the courthouse? Doc never told me he worked at the courthouse..."

"Weird. I don't remember him ever saying anything about that, either." She shrugged, "Well, I'm sure he had a reason for not wanting to tell anybody."

"Yeah, I guess so. Maybe we should go ask him, just in case."

"Hey, Doc. Doc! So, according to the British guy on the phone, you're working at the courthouse." Marty said.

"Of course! In the summer of '31 my father made me work as a junior law clerk." Doc answered in confirmation.

"That doesn't sound like any fun." said Emma.

"I hated every minute of it. My father was...strict. In any event, you should probably get over to the courthouse and introduce yourselves."

Marty thought for a moment. "What kind of work does a law clerk do, anyway?"

"Horrible paper shuffling tasks, but that's not important. Get yourselves over to the courthouse and find me."

* * *

Upon reaching the courthouse doors, Marty reached for the handle, but the door swung upon at that moment causing him and Emma to collide with a young intern who dropped his portfolio on impact. They started to help picking them up, but the tall boy snatched them away, lecturing the two as he did."Don't touch those! These are very sensitive legal documents and nobody is allowed to handle them except sworn officers of the court. Pop—I mean, Judge Brown says so!"

"Judge Brown?" Marty asked, picking up a final stray paper and handing it to young Emmett.

"Doc... Uh, it's nice to meet you. I'm Michael...Corleone... And this is Rose Tyler..."

"Emmett Brown. But I'm a law clerk, not a doctor. Now, please get out of my way. I have 'important business' to transact."

"I don't think this is going to be as easy as Doc thought," Emma said softly.

Marty shook his head. He agreed with Em. But he was determined to get young Doc's help, so he followed right behind the redheaded boy, Emma tagging along with him in silence. "Listen, Emmett. You don't know us, but we're your friends."

"I'm not big on friends. They get in the way of work."

"What's this 'important business' you're up to?" asked Marty.

"It's a legal matter. Very complicated, very abstruse. I have to obtain five sets of initials on this writ of indemnification before Pop—I mean, before Judge Brown can even think of granting a pardon to the party of the first part!"

"You have no idea what it's about, do you?" Emma said.

"THAT's how important it is!" Emmett replied.

"C'mon, Doc—Emmett. Drop the legal eagle act! We got something more important for you to do," said Marty.

"Mr. Corleone! I'll have you know that the law is the very mortar that holds society together, and we in the legal profession are like brickmasons building the edifice of the future!"

"Your dad tell you that?"

"Every morning." Emmett frowned.

"So, Emmett, what time are you through with work?"

"Oh, it depends. Pop sometimes keeps me in the office until nine."

"Nine at night?! But today's Saturday!" Marty said.

"Right! So I probably won't get off before ten."

"How about you knock off work early and we'll buy you a beer-er, soda?"

"Don't try to tempt me from my work with sugary beverages! Keeping the wheels of justice turning, that's my one true passion in life! Besides, if I left work before eight, my Pop'd kill me."

"Sounds like you're a little scared of your father..." Marty pointed out. Emma nodded sympathetically.

"Scared of my father? Pop is the most learned, just, incorruptible judge Hill Valley's ever seen. The only people scared of Judge Brown are people with a dark secret to hide. And I don't have a dark secret to hide!"

"Listen, we understand you're working on a new invention in your lab—"

"Invention?" Emmett looked around suddenly at the mention of the word before addressing them again. You must have me mixed up with somebody else. I'm in law. I have absolutely no interest in science!" with that, Emmett turned and walked hurriedly away from them, muttering under his breath, "H to the A multiplied by the inverse of A comes out to a model coefficient value of less than A... Wait, is that even possible? Oh, let's start over."

"Come on, wait up a minute!" Marty said.

"You again? Can't you see I'm busy?" Emmett said coldly.

Marty spoke. "See, we're sort of in the science business ourselves."

Emma nodded, adding, "That's why we sought you out."

Emmett rolled his eyes, "Not that I care in the least, because science is the furthest thing from my own area of interest, which is LAW, but I don't believe you."

Marty narrowed his eyes. "It's true! I'm a scientist."

"Then tell me something, Mr. Scientist, from your vast storehouse of scientific knowledge!"

"Uh...the leg bone's connected to the thigh bone?"

"Amazing," he said sarcastically. And how about you?" he gestured to Emma, who had been distracted by something happening off in the distance. "What kind of scientific know-how do YOU have?"

"Huh? Oh, uhm... Were you expecting anything in particular? I know that Weight in newtons is mass x acceleration and that mass is not the same thing as weight, and I could tell you a thing or two about entropy and—"

"Okay, okay, I get it! You know science. It still doesn't change the fact that _I'm_ not a scientist. Good day!"

"Will you just give me a chance?" Marty begged.

"Harassment's a federal crime, Mr. Corleone!"

"Okay, so you don't want your old man to know. That's fine, listen, we all keep secrets, but I'm tellin' ya, you can level with us about this science project of yours."

"I am NOT a scientist! Go ahead, ask me what E equals."

"What does E equal?"

"I have absolutely no idea. See? I don't know where you got your information from about me, but you're wrong, wrong, wrong!"

Emma sighed, "this isn't going well."

Marty was starting to lose hope, too. "Maybe we're missing something here."

"Could we ask Doc?"

"It's worth a shot. Maybe he'll know what's up."

"Doc! Hey, Doc!" Marty called out.

Emma spoke first when he appeared at the window. "Well, we met your younger self."

"Great!"

"And I gotta say, you're...kind of uptight," Marty added, tensing up his shoulders.

"What?"

"You won't even talk to us." Emma added.

He shook his head, "I find that hard to believe. Tell me what happened."

"I tried asking him about your rocket drill, but he says he's not a scientist," Marty said.

"What?! Why–Oh, father..."

"What's he got to do with this?"

"In 1931, I was still deathly afraid of my father finding out about my scientific predilections, so I kept it under wraps, practicing science at odd hours, away from his prying eyes."

"That sucks."

"Yes, it sucked a lot. Fortunately, I eventually stood up to him, but for right now, my younger self probably thinks you've been sent by my father to check up on me."

"Are you sure?" asked Emma to Doc, "Your younger self seems _really_ dedicated to the law..."

"It's a facade, I assure you. I had to keep up appearances to appease my father," he explained.

"Why does your younger self mutter all the time?" questioned Marty.

"Muttering? Why would I be muttering..? I never mutter, unless..." Doc muttered to himself before exclaiming, "That's it! The Hill Valley Expo!"

"The Expo?" The teens said in unison.

"Yes!" Doc exclaimed, "How could I have forgotten? In a few months, the younger me will put on a demonstration at the Hill Valley Science Exposition, my first public foray into the world of science! Everyone in town will be there, including a number of noted scientists and inventors who helped shape my career!"

"So it was a big success?" Marty asked.

"No, it was a miserable failure. But it was a SPECTACULARLY miserable failure. One that marked my transition from amateur garage scientist into a professional seeker of truth!"

"Okay, but what does this Expo have to do with your younger self muttering all the time?"

"When I was younger I used to relieve stress by working on complex mathematical conundrums. No doubt my younger self is working on some impossible problem in an attempt to blow off some cerebral steam in the coming weeks before the Expo. What was I muttering about?"

"I dunno, H to the something, with an inverse of something else? I'm not so good at equations." said Marty.

"I thought it was H to the A with... Uh, I don't remember." Emma said shakily. "The...inverse of the coefficient value of less than A...? That doesn't sound right."

"Well, try and figure out what equation he's working on," Doc said encouragingly. "You need to gain his trust if you're going to break me out of here!"

* * *

Marty, thinking quick as Emmett passed on by in the park, whipped out the tape recorder and quietly crept up behind him to record his muttering.

"Got it!"

"Got what?" asked Emma.

"Teen Doc's muttering," he replied. "Now Doc can hear him."

They walked quietly back to the jailhouse window. "So Doc, does this ring a bell?"

 _"Rrrgh! Think, Emmett, Think! H to the A multiplied by the inverse of A... H to the A multiplied by the inverse of A..."_

"Good grief! Is that...me? I sound so...so-"

"Young?" Marty chuckled.

"I was going to say 'intense'. I forgot how wound up I used to get," he explained.

"Yeah, but what are you muttering about?"

"Oh, that's easy. It's Ivanov's Conundrum. Just tell my younger self that H equals the Hamiltonian Operator."

"Won't giving him the answer mess up the time stream?"

Doc shrugged, "Only if it turns out that reality is nothing more than a holographic illusion created by the interplay of subatomic particles on a vast two-dimensional membrane."

"So...?" Marty trailed off.

"It'll be fine," Doc assured them.

* * *

"Come on, Emmett. We're on your side, I swear," Emma pleaded.

"Oh yeah? Prove it," Young Emmett said coldly, not even bothering to look back at her or Marty.

"Maybe H equals the Hamiltonian Operator," Marty said.

Emmett tilted his head in disbelief, "What did you just say?"

"I said, 'Maybe H equals the-"

Emmett cut him off. "-Hamiltonian Operator?"

"Yeah!"

"Great Scott! If H is the Hamiltonian, then H to the A multiplied by the inverse of A can ONLY be the same as the expectation value of A! Haha, that's it! That's the solution to Ivanov's Conundrum, the problem I've been wrestling with in my head all week!"

Marty grinned, "I'm sure you would've figured it out yourself in a day or two."

"The way you figured out how to make that rocket-powered drill!" Emma added.

"Where did you two learn so much about...science?" He whispered.

"Well, it's like this-"

"-You two know about my rocket drill, then there's only one explanation!"

"What?"

"You're from the patent office! I confess, I didn't quite know what to expect when I sent in the application... But I never expected this! Welcome! I'm at your service. What can I do for you?" said Emmett.

"Can we see your rocket-powered drill?" Marty asked.

Emmett nodded, "Of course! Naturally, it's only a scale model, and not yet operational, but I can show it to you say, first thing tomorrow morning?"

Marty shook his head, "No, that's no good. We need to see a full-sized model." Emmett gasped.

"That's fully operational." Emma added. Emmett gasped again.

"Tonight!" Marty finished. Emmett gasped one final time, looking aghast at the other two teens.

Marty continued on, "Otherwise we'll have to award the patent to a competing inventor... Dr. McCoy."

"What?" Emma asked, noticing that they'd lost Emmett about one sentence too late.

"It can't be done! I mean, sure, it might be possible to construct a full-sized working model in that time frame, but I haven't even got the main ingredient for the fuel!"

"We'll get it for you!" Marty said enthusiastically. "What is it?"

"190-proof grain alcohol! And you know how hard it is to get a hold of alcohol these days!" Emmett flailed his arms wildly, starting to pace anxiously around the gazebo.

"Especially now that someone's blown up the speakeasy," Emma said.

"And on top of all that, there's no way I can get off work before I deliver this subpoena! It's part of the investigation into the business affairs of Kid Tannen. Is it vitally important that you see that rocket-powered drill today?"

"Yes."

"Is it vitally important that you deliver that subpoena today?"

"Yes!"

Marty sighed, "Listen, we'll help you deliver the subpoena and we'll see to it that you get the alcohol you need-"

"Sh!"

"-if it'll help you get the drill finished by tonight. Deal?"

"Deal!" Emmett answered. "Here's the subpoena."

"Arthur McFly?" Marty read the name on the paper out loud, then added more quietly so only Emma heard him, "I have to subpoena my grandpa?!"

At that moment, the three of them saw Kid Tannen walk out of the barber shop, accompanied by one of his mooks. He sat at the shoeshine booth, placing Arthur McFly's hat in the vacant seat next to him.

"Sh! It's Kid Tannen!"

Emma piped up, "Hey, we just saw him at the soup kitchen, yelling at Arthur McFly!"

"I'm not surprised. Arthur does the books for his business," Emmett said.

"What kind of business?" Marty asked.

"That's what the DA's trying to find out."

"Let's go talk to him!" Marty said, both Emma and himself preparing to walk over to the shoeshine booth. Emmett grabbed their shoulders and pulled them back.

"No!" he whispered in warning.

Emma was the first to strike with a "Why not?"

"Kid Tannen can tell us where Arthur's hiding!" Marty pointed out.

"Yeah, well, he can also have us fitted for a Chicago overcoat!" Emmett exclaimed before walking away from Marty and Emma.


	3. Chapter 3

After Emmett had settled down from the initial shock of seeing Kid Tannen, Marty and Emma set to finding out how best to handle both situations, starting with the subpoena, since that would be the more serious thing holding Emmett back from completing the drill in time. "Emmett?"

"Yes?"

"You have to deliver a lot of subpoenas?" inquired Emma.

"Father's always sending me out to do these jobs," Emmett said. "He says he wants to expose me to different kinds of people. All he's exposed me to is a lot of new curse words," he added sadly, crossing his arms over his chest and hunching his shoulders slightly.

"If serving subpoenas is such dirty work, why don't you just say no?"

"Look, what's the worst thing that can happen to me on this job?"

"You could get shot," Marty supplied.

Emmett was quiet for a moment, as though weighing the pros and cons of disobeying his father over getting shot. "Yeah, well that's nothing compared to what I'll get if I mouth off to my pop!"

"So... This subpoena's for Arthur McFly?"

"Have you seen him?"

"For a few minutes in the soup kitchen, but I think he's gone back into hiding."

"Brilliant deduction, Einstein!" Emmett replied sarcastically. The old dog barked upon hearing his name.

"What do you know about Arthur McFly?"

"Certified accountant. Graduated Hill Valley Municipal five classes ahead of me, seems like a nice fellow, actually."

"How'd he get mixed up with a guy like Kid Tannen?" Marty asked.

Emmett shrugged, "Who knows? Sometimes people find themselves trapped in situations they can't get out of."

"Tell me about it..." Emma murmured, taking a sidelong glance at Marty.

Marty shook his head in warning at Emma before asking Emmett another question. "What about Kid Tannen? What do we know about him?"

"He's loud, he's obnoxious, he's not very bright, and he doesn't like anybody getting in his way." replied Emmett.

"Yup, that's a Tannen, all right... We'll get that subpoena delivered, or my name isn't-"

"-Michael Corleone!" Emmett exclaimed.

"...Yeah..." Marty replied hesitantly.

He slowly approached Kid Tannen at the shoeshine booth, where his accomplice was trying and failing at shining his boss's shoes. "What the hell, Matches?! You got kiwi all over my socks!"

"Sorry, boss."

"Get outta here!" Kid sneered, turning his attention on Marty. "How 'bout you?"

"Huh?" Marty pointed to himself.

"I'm sittin' at a shoeshine booth. You walk up. Either you're here to shine my shoes, or you got a deathwish. Which is it?"

Marty hastily set to work buffing out Tannen's shoes, then thinking quickly decided he'd better get Kid feeling less guarded and quick. "I guess you won't talk about your business..."

"Why not? I got nothing to hide, " Kid grinned. "I recently acquired controlling interest in the Sisters of Mercy Soup Kitchen."

"Isn't a soup kitchen an...odd line of work for a guy like you?"

"I like soup. And I got a heart as big as all outdoors." Marty looked up momentarily, causing Kid to critique his work. "Eh, buff a little harder. I wanna see myself in the toes."

"Why won't you let the Stay Sober Society have their meetings in the cellar of your soup kitchen?"

"We got other plans for that cellar. And it don't necessarily involve staying sober."

"Edna Strickland seems to think your soup kitchen isn't on the up-and-up."

"That dame really gets on my nerves. Got a great pair of gams, though."

"I'm looking for a guy named Arthur McFly. He's my-ah, sort of a relative..."

"Well he's MY employee. And he's very busy today."

"Since you're Arthur's boss, you know where he is, right?"

"He's at the...office."

"Where's the office?"

"I forget."

"So what time do you think Arthur will be leaving the office?" Marty asked.

"When I TELL him he can leave the office! Hey, you missed a spot."

"Isn't that Arthur's hat you've got there?"

"It WAS McFly's hat. Now it's my peanut bowl. Heh."

"Could I buy Arthur's hat off you?"

"Could you keep your mind on your work?! Huh, shoeshine boy? I'm hanging on to my peanut bowl."

Marty set down the brush he'd been using to shine Kid's shoes and asked, "Could I have some peanuts?"

Kid grinned. "Why not? I'm a magnanimous kinda guy. Go ahead, knock yourself out."

Marty reached for some peanuts slowly, then suddenly shouted, "Hey, Kid!"

"Yeah?" Kid responded.

"WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!" Marty exclaimed, pointing behind him with one hand, and once Kid Tannen had fallen for the trick, Marty yanked the hat out of his hands and ran for it.

"Hey! Give me back that hat, you lousy crook!" Kid shouted, chasing after him. Marty easily vaulted over the park's low stone wall, then ran toward Emmett and Emma.

"What did you do?!" Emmett exclaimed.

"Ma-Michael! I'm open!" Emma called out, raising her arms as though about to catch a football. She easily caught it and then threw it back to Marty before Kid and Matches could stop her.

"Emmett! Here!"

Luckily with the three teenagers against Kid and Matches, they managed to create an exciting game of keep-away before Emmett was cornered by the mobsters, and decided to flash some old athletic ability.

"Emmett!" Marty cried as the three of them made out of the park just as a trolley was rolling on by. They managed to slip in to the law offices of Gale, Zemeckis & Fine before Kid Tannen and his crony could catch them going in the door.

"Nobody makes a monkey out of Kid Tannen!" He exclaimed, then walked his freshly-shined shoes into a puddle of oil. "Hey!" Matches couldn't help but grin, to Kid's displeasure. He punched his associate in the abdomen as he walked back to the barber shop. "Al, fix me up!"

Safe from being harassed by Tannen, the kids left the law office building, Marty, in awe of Emmett's quick reflexes back there, remarked "Where'd you learn how to move like that?"

"Sandlot football. They used to call me The Streak!" Emmett said.

"Get out," exclaimed Marty.

"Well, you got the hat. I hope that was worth it for you." Emma said, cynically.

"I thought so. Hey Einie, c'mere for a sec, boy." Marty whistled to the dog, who was still faithfully sitting by the tree where they'd left him. "Can you find the person who belongs to this hat?" Einstein noisily snuffled the hat, then ran off in the direction of the building that would be Edna's future apartment.

"Where's he going?" Emmett asked.

"Only one way to find out! Come on!" Emma called.

"Huh, deja vu," said Marty.

"I don't think it's deja vu if it HAS happened before..." Emma remarked. "Do you think Old Edna knows that the apartment she lives in was once inhabited by an employee of a vicious mob boss?" she whispered to Marty, who would have responded had Emmett not just interjected himself into their conversation.

"Need any help?" he asked enthusiastically.

"Um... Never mind." Marty said. He pushed the call button on the door, of which there was only one this time rather than the four that had been present in 1986.

"Yeah? Who is it?" Artie answered.

"It's McFly!" Emmett exclaimed.

Marty and Emma shushed him simultaneously, Marty adding in "I know!"

"Hey, Artie!"

"Do I know you?"

"Can you come down a minute?"

"Why?"

"I'm your grand-" _Don't blow it now, McFly..._ "-mother's great-nephew!"

"You mean my second cousin?" Artie asked.

"Yeah!"

"Glad to know you! But I can't leave until the boss says so!" he said in a terrified tone. "Sorry, some other time..."

Marty, not satisfied with this, pressed the button again, to see if maybe a different approach would work.

"What now?"

"It's me again. Please, come down."

"Why?"

"We represent the law!" Emma said. Marty looked at her. "What? It technically isn't a lie... Right now..."

"You don't want to go against the law, do you?" added Emmett.

"No, but I don't want to go against Kid Tannen, either, and...he ordered me to stay put until he gives the word!" a fearful Artie responded.

"So nothing we say is going to be enough to get Artie to come out of there, is it?" Emma asked.

"Maybe not, but I have an idea..." Marty mused.

"What is it?"

"Just follow me. You'll see in a minute."

They arrived back in the park, just in time for Kid and Matches to emerge from the barber shop once more. They were talking, no doubt, about the imminent opening of Kid Tannen's new speakeasy.

"You can't be serious about going back over there, Marty. I can tell from here; They are pissed."

"What's the worst that could happen, Em?"

"You could get shot."

"Hey, it's me."

"That's what I'm afraid of."

"Excuse me, Miss Tyler."

"It's-Oh, right. Um, yes, Emmett?"

"Well, it's just that... I was curious, if you and Michael are..."

"Are what?"

"Courting."

"Courting?! Oh God-I mean, no."

"Oh, good! Then I can ask you this next question with no problem!"

"Uh..."

"Well, you see, it's just that not a lot of girls are interested in science, and you seemed so excited to ask about my rocket drill earlier, and I was wondering, if perhaps, I might have the pleasure of taking you out on a date at some point?"

Emma sighed, "Emmett, look... You're..." _My grandfather,_ she said in her mind. "A really sweet guy... But I'm-" Her thoughts droned on as she tried to finagle a way out of the conversation. Y _our granddaughter who lives in the future and I really don't want to know if this turns out like that one episode of Futurama where Fry accidentally becomes his own grandpa because oh my god, just... No._ "-I mean, I live so far away, and I don't want to get involved in anything that I might regret..."

"Oh... O-Okay."

"I'm really sorry, Emmett. But there'll be other girls to share your love of science with, believe me." _Totally saved it._

"I've never been wrong yet." _Phew._

"I suppose you're right."

At that moment, Marty came running back into the park, with Matches tailing right behind him, and Kid Tannen coming at him from the front. Thinking quickly, he climbed on top of the gazebo in the center of the park. All Emma and Emmett could do was watch helplessly as Kid Tannen continued to harass their friend with no success.

"Come down from there, you little son of a bitch. Right now! That's an order! Don't make me angry, schmucko. Get down here and face the music!" Tannen growled. Marty had another idea. He had a device that could record voices. If he recorded Kid Tannen ranting at him to come down, he could use it to fool Artie into leaving the apartment. He took the tape recorder out of his pocket and set it to record.

"What do you think you're doing up there, you scrawny little runt?! Get down here right now!"

"I'm a patient guy, but my trigger finger's getting itchy! So I'm giving you to the count of three. One... Two..."

Tree!"

"I know what comes after two, dummy."

"Just trying to help, boss."

"Let ME do the counting! Okay, now where was I?"

"Uh, three."

"Okay, you know what? Forget counting. Just get down here, and take what you got comin', all right? Yeah, I'm talking to you, crumb bum! Get the hell off of that thing, and face your punishment like a man!"

"Psst, Einstein! Help!" Faithful Einie didn't hesitate to help Marty, jumping on Kid Tannen and Matches and barking at them while Marty slid down from the gazebo and ducked behind the wall.

"Hey! Lay off! Get away from me, you crazy mutt!"

"Go away, dog! We're busy here!"

"Hey! Where'd he go?" Kid exclaimed as he noticed Marty was no longer on top of the gazebo. "You let him get away, idiot!" he scolded Matches, then walked off behind the alley of the soup kitchen.

Emmett and Emma met back with Marty, who was still clutching the tape recorder in his hand before he realized that Emmett had seen it. "What's that?" he asked.

"It's uh, nothing-just something we were looking into at the patent office."

"What's it do?"

"It ah, records voices."

"Amazing! A fully portable audio recording studio! How does it work?"

"Sorry. Uh, patent pending."

"I understand."

Back by the apartment, Marty made sure he was standing out of sight with the recorder at the ready under the window. He cued Emma to press the door buzzer and when Artie opened the window he played back the recording.

" _What do you think you're doing up there, you scrawny little runt?! Get down here right now!_ "

"It's Kid! Right away, boss!" He quickly walked out the door and onto the street, now confused that there was no sign of his boss. "Huh? Where's Kid?"

"Arthur McFly?"

"Yeah?"

"Got something for you." Marty said as he handed Arthur the subpoena.

"Thanks," Artie said as he looked absently at the paper. "A subpoena!"

"Ordering you to appear in court and provide evidence in the investigation of-"

"Kid Tannen?! Take it back!"

"You can't get rid of it, Mr. McFly. Once you've been served, it's your responsibility to report to the court at the earliest possible time. Failure to do so could lead to a warrant for your arrest."

"Arrest?! But Kid'll kill me! Stupid, stupid Artie! Holy cats, what am I gonna do?!" Artie was shouting frantically.

"I suggest you avail yourself to the protection of the court." Emmett said, in a manner that Emma and Marty thought was eerily calm for all the panicking he'd been doing earlier.

"Oh gosh, oh gosh..." They followed Artie to the courthouse to see him off and make sure nothing happened to him on his way there. After that they spent a few months just standing on the steps of the courthouse while Marty ran down a mental checklist of the stuff they'd had to do just to deliver a subpoena.

"I hate doing stuff like that, but I won't have to for much longer!" Emmett said optimistically.

"No?" Marty responded.

"Once we get that 190 proof alcohol my future will be set, and I'll be able to quit this crummy job!"

"Oh, right." Emma and Marty exchanged guilty glances.


	4. Chapter 4

Half of their mission successfully completed, Marty, Emmett, and Emma wandered back into the soup kitchen to work on getting the alcohol for the rocket drill fuel. Emmett went on ahead of the time traveling duo, who had stopped just out of the way of the door when Kid's henchman, Matches, walked in through the kitchen's back door.

"Hey, Cue Ball. The truck just arrived with a fresh shipment of uh-" Matches sneered at Marty and Emma, both of whom's interest had piqued at the implication that the suspicious-looking barrels might not actually be soup. "-soup."

" _Soup_ -soup?" Cue Ball asked, confirming their suspicions.

"Well, uh-this is the regular soup and this is the...special soup."

"Ri-i-ight, special..." Matches juggled the barrels of soup and the barrels of "soup" expertly, setting the special soup on the top shelf of the bread rack, and the actual soup on the table next to the other barrels of cabbage soup.

He peered over his comrade's shoulder. "Hey, what are you doin'?"

"I'm spicin' up the soup," Cue Ball answered. "It's my secret recipe!"

"Listen, this ain't the Savoy, and we ain't here to feed these bozos no fancy soup!" Matches spat, going on to lecture his fellow employee that they were supposed to be helping their boss rebuild his business and reminding him that the soup kitchen was only supposed to be a decent enough front to keep anybody from getting too suspicious about their ulterior motives and not a five-star soup restaurant.

"All right, all right! Just try the soup," Cue Ball said, stepping aside and handing Matches the soup ladle. Emma sincerely hoped that after putting both of their mouths on it, they'd at least rinse it off before sticking it back in the soup. Matches' face contorted in disgust as he sipped up a bit of soup, then dumped the ladle back in the pot. "Well?"

"I can see why you want to keep this a secret," he said before walking away to leave Cue Ball to guard his position.

As the kids moved from the door to the very back of the soup kitchen, they watched in secrecy as Cue Ball looked around with shifty eyes. He set his newspaper down, stood up, and walked over to the pipe on the wall near the front door. At first they were confused when he started banging on the pipe with the butt of his gun, but then they continued watching as they noticed the bread rack descend into the floor.

When it came back up, it was empty, and it didn't take long for either of them to put two and two together and realize where those particular barrels were going. They huddled up to talk strategies for obtaining a barrel of alcohol.

Marty looked around at the setting of the dusty, quiet and unassuming nature of the soup resturant. "So, obviously this kitchen isn't the speakeasy..."

"Indeed," stated Emmett. "This must be some sort of front meant to cleverly and legally obfuscate the existence of an hidden establishment of ill-repute, perhaps in the basement!" he said in an awed tone.

"Right. That would explain the elevator..." added Marty.

They were quiet for a second before Emma spoke. "I think we can probably guess which barrels are of interest to us," she said.

"Well, what are you waiting for?!" Emmett asked, eyes wide with excitement.

"He's not just gonna GIVE us a barrel, Emmett," Marty pointed out.

"Of course. Well, you two seem to have a _way_ with people, so I'll leave it to you to trick that lummox into giving up his moonshine." replied Emmett.

* * *

They both tried and failed to squeeze themselves through the kitchen door, which they realized they would never be able to hold open on their own, either, for fear of serious injury because of how big and heavy the tables leaned against it were. "Emmett, I can't get through that door over there, those tables are jamming it shut," Marty pointed out.

"The door?! So your plan is to just waltz in there and take a barrel of alcohol?!" Emmett asked in complete disbelief.

"Apparently-" Emma started to answer, but was quickly cut off by Marty.

"Um, no-Of course not!" he said, "That would be stupid, right?"

"I'll say," replied Emmett flatly.

"Still, I'd like to get that door open. I can't _do_ anything from out here."

"Well, that's a simple matter of physics..." Emmett explained. "A lever, some sort of stop. I'll see what I can come up with."

Moments later, the door was propped open.

"Nice door jam, Emmett," Emma said, commending Emmett on a job well-done at getting the door to the kitchen to remain open.

"Oh. That's... Interesting," remarked Marty, staring at the odd configuration of what appeared to be a spatula attached to a few other food utensils by some string Emmett had found lying around.

"Just a little mechanical ingenuity, that's all," Emmett explained. "In the end, the door is open."

"Yeah," Marty said, "Good job."

"Okay, but why are we doing this?" Emma asked, skeptical of the plan that Marty had just relayed to her.

"What do you mean? We need to get a barrel of alcohol _somehow_ ," Marty said.

"I _know_ that," she replied, "But wouldn't it be easier to just sneak a barrel off of the truck that's parked out back unloading all the bootlegged cargo?"

"What would happen if they caught us, Em? They're gangsters. It's not like they'd just give us a slap on the wrists and tell us to beat it."

"No, of course not. They'd probably shoot us both."

"Exactly. This way, they'll never even notice anything's going on. Trust me on this, Emma."

"Well... Okay. I hope you know what you're doing," said Emma.

"Could I have a bowl of soup?" Marty asked to Cue Ball while staring at an empty bowl on the bar counter. He'd admit that he wasn't fond of this part of his plan, but it was necessary.

"We're a soup kitchen, kid. What do you think?" Cue Ball answered, setting his racing form down on the counter as he got up to serve Marty, sliding a bowl down to him.

Marty shuddered inwardly as he spooned in a mouthful. It probably really could cause irreparable damage to the digestive system. "Ugh, what kind of soup is this?"

Cue Ball rolled his eyes and spoke in an irate manner, "Everyone's a critic. Look, all I got to work with is this crummy soup in a barrel, and spice rack that hadn't been restocked since the Coolidge Administration. What do YOU think I should do to perk this slop up?"

"Let's see," said Marty, "Have you tried... paprika?"

"Paprika?" Cue Ball repeated.

Marty stammered out a fib claiming the soup was lacking something in terms of colorful flavor. It seemed as though Cue Ball agreed, as he made for the spice rack to grab a bottle of paprika. He pulled the bread rack, still containing another shelf full of bootlegged liquor, out of the way, and set to work stirring up his latest masterpiece, oblivious to the clever plan Marty and Emma had hatched to get their hands on the alcohol-filled barrels.

Marty examined the pipe, then glanced in Cue Ball's direction to make sure he was still distracted with seasoning the soup. He cleared his throat to get his attention, but the soupmaker ignored him, which was just what Marty wanted. He took out the tape recorder and banged it against the pipe three times, triggering the elevator. Because Cue Ball had pulled the rack partially off the elevator platform, it tipped over, half falling into the hole and dumping the barrels onto the table, where the tables being propped up by the door kept them from rolling too far and falling onto the floor. Mission accomplished, at least in part.

Satisfied with the result of getting the booze barrels to blend with the soup barrels, Emma made for the door outside to persuade Edna Strickland to grab them a barrel for the rocket drill (not that she would tell Edna that, exactly, as the columnist would likely protest that a rocket drill was a public hazard that could be a sign of hooliganism, and all of the other things she was fond of ranting about). But before she could place a hand on the doorknob, it burst open, and in walked Edna.

"Ah, Miss Strickland. Come for some more soup?"

"Come now, Mr. Donelly. You know I wouldn't set one foot in this mockery of all that is good if the poor of Hill Valley weren't so dependent on Mr. Tannen's overblown show of generosity."

"Is that a yes?"

"Just give me the soup before I gag on the hypocrisy," Edna spat.

Cue Ball grabbed a barrel from the counter and carried it over to Edna. "I'll tell the boss you said hello!"

"I'll just bet you will," said Edna, coldly.

"Edna picked up the barrel of hooch. Now all we have to do is get it from her somehow..." Marty said to Emma.

* * *

Emma recalled the conversation they'd had with Edna earlier before Marty had gone to talk to Kid Tannen, in which she had mentioned that he'd kicked her early organization of Alcoholics Anonymous called the Stay Sober Society, out of the cellar of the soup kitchen, and how she wasn't sure where they would be able to meet if they couldn't do it there. "Hey, Miss Strickland, we know a place where the Stay Sober Society can meet!" she chirped.

"Oh, where?" Edna asked.

"The uh... Brown Residence!" exclaimed Marty.

"You mean Judge Brown's place?"

"Yeah! We happen to be good friends with his son, Emmett, and he says he'd love to lend his place out to... good causes, like yours!"

"Oh, why that's the most generous and public-spirited offer I've heard in a month of Sundays! Please, tell your friend Emmett we accept!" Edna responded graciously. "And the offer couldn't have come at a better time! It's almost time for the meeting to begin."

"Great!"

"I can't get over the generosity of your friend Emmett! Volunteering his father's house for our meeting!"

"Huh?" Emmett grunts, looking in the direction of Marty and Emma, both of whom shrug in response. "Uh, wait there!" he shouts to Edna, getting ready to ride away on her pink bicycle.

"Michael, Rose-What in the name of Thomas Alva Edison do you think you're doing?!"

"Don't you get it?" asked Marty, going on to explain further, "You need alcohol to run your drill. Those bootleggers at the soup kitchen won't let us get our hands on any of it, _but_ we can get Miss Strickland to pick it up for us."

"No! Out of the question!"

"Why?"

"I can't just let strangers waltz in and invade my parents' house!" Emmett protested. "What do we know about these people?"

"They're sober. It says so right in the name," Marty answered.

"Well, okay... but-But Father needs his peace and quiet at the end of the day. This meeting is sure to be too noisy for him," he complained.

"They'll be quiet," Emma assured him.

Marty turned to Edna, "You'll be quiet, right?"

"Oh, yes! I play my tambourine _very_ softly!" replied Edna.

"You hear that?" Marty said, trying to coax Emmett into the idea.

Emmett was still unphased. "Yes, but..."

Emma sighed, "But what?"

"It's still impossible!"

Marty rolled his eyes and shook his head, "Okay, then. Forget the whole thing."

"What?" Emma asked softly. Marty shot her a "just go with it" look before getting back to egging Emmett on.

"We don't have to test your rocket drill tonight."

"We don't?" Emma and Emmett asked simultaneously.

Marty gently pulled Emma aside and whispered "just play along for a minute," hoping that she'd catch on to what he was doing. She did, and after flashing him an expression of recognition for what he was playing at, the two of them started walking slowly away from Emmett as Marty continued speaking, "Rose and I will just take the train back to Washington and tell the folks at the Office to give the patent to Doctor McCoy."

"Wait!" Emmett shouted after them. He raised a finger and opened his mouth as though about to tell them something, but it seemed as though he'd lost his thought before he could say anything. Instead he turned and walked to where Edna was waiting for the okay. "You WILL instruct the members of the Society to wipe their feet before they come inside?" he said, phrasing it as more of a demand than an actual question.

Edna's skeptic gaze quickly reformed into a more cheerful and attractive expression. "Then you ARE Emmett Brown! I thought as much. You have such a...righteous face," she said, almost purring as she gazed at him with her big green eyes and fluttered her long lashes at him.

"She's standing awfully close to him," Emma said quietly to Marty. "Should we be concerned about that?"

He shrugged, "Nah, I don't think anything'll come of them flirting a little. Edna's _definitely_ not Doc's type."

Emmett was grimacing as Edna mounted her bicycle and rode away. He sighed as Marty and Emma regrouped beside him. "I've got a bad feeling about this."

"Ah, you worry too much, Emmett," Marty told his friend.

Well, we've delivered the subpoena and gotten a barrel of booze delivered to your house. Looks like we're off to your lab to build your rocket drill!" Marty pointed out, hesitating for a moment as though trying to remember when Doc had told him he'd first built his lab. "Er, you do have a lab, right?"

"What kind of future patent holder would I be without a lab?" he replied, "Come on."

"Doc!" Marty shouted as they jogged up to the jailhouse window.

"Marty, Emma!" His old friend greeted them. "How goes the escape plan?"

"Great! We're off to get the drill!"

Doc grinned. "Good!" He gasped as he saw his younger self quickly approaching Marty and Emma and quickly ducked down behind the barred window.

"Come on, let's go!" Emmett beckoned to them, "Time waits for no man! Or woman, as the case may be!" he added, nodding toward Emma. Doc smiled warmly as the three teenagers walked off in the direction of 1640 Riverside Drive.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N** : Hello! Once again, I apologize for the huge delay in posting anything new in MONTHS, but I'm here to say I haven't forgotten about anything! I didn't make my end-of-year goal with finishing this up, but I'm still working on it, as well as making plans for my other two published fics in-progress. Still not even done with this yet, but I've decided to just put out what is done so I can get it out of the way and move on. For some reason I'm not thrilled with what happens right after this, even though I loved it in the game, so I'm trying to work on a suitable deviation. I wanted Marty to have a friend, but I don't want them to be stuck together like glue the _whole_ time, Emma has her own problems to deal with alongside making Marty's into some of them!

* * *

Though Marty had seen it before, the sight of Doc's unmarred family mansion was still a jarring experience, though perhaps not as much to him as it was to Emma, who exhaled with a "Wow," as they came to the driveway.

"Yeah," Marty chuckled, "I know that feeling."

"Look, but don't touch _anything_ until we get to the lab," Emmett warned them both. "Father can be a little... uptight...about letting strangers in the house. And he'd kill me if you two got fingerprints on anything," he winced. He'd only known Michael and Rose for a few hours, but he felt like he could comfortably call him his friends, and nobody wants to have their friends yelled at by overbearing parents.

Emma couldn't blame Emmett for his worry. The feeling of dread that came from fretting about a strict parent finding something out of place was something that she knew all too well from her mother's parents. Her mother may have backed out on her impending life change, but Emma's other, incredibly uncool grandparents certainly hadn't. They took their job as grandparents very seriously, but they weren't at all like Doc and Clara. As she recalled, their house was more like a museum than anything else. Her mind began to wander briefly through the cold hallways of half her childhood spent at the home of a family she would never really know, before Marty and Emmett pulled her back into the moment when they reached the lab.

"Are you sure this is going to work, Emmett?" Marty asked uneasily, starting to feel his own doubts about the plan.

Emmett waved an arm as he started setting up. "Don't let the ramshackle nature of my laboratory fool you. Soon we'll be in possession of the most powerful rocket fuel known to man!" He boasted.

"That's great... Um, how?" asked Marty.

"It's very simple..." Emmett began, demonstrating how to crank the lever to power the device Marty had thought was Doc's interpretation of an electric pencil sharpener. "This crankshaft induces a powerful direct current into the electrolysis chamber, producing hydrogen which must be periodically released into the primary distillation barrel! While tending to the hydrogen, we'll also need to regularly sprinkle these shredded protein flakes into this aquarium of tuber bacteria to generate the necessary nitrogen to catalyze the reaction!"

"Cool..." said Marty, trying to hide how lost he was already feeling.

"No, hot! Extremely hot! The temperature of the reaction must be kept at a steady temperature of 623 degrees Kelvin by carefully pumping these bellows!" He heated the tiny flame underneath the alcohol, trying to teach them by example before turning to ask, "Any questions?"

"EMMETT! WHY IS THERE A BRACE OF DRUNKARDS GATHERING ON OUR LAWN?" A gruff voice bellowed from outside the lab.

"Sweet Fancy Moses," Emmett exclaimed, "It's my father!"

"So?" asked Marty.

" _So_ , he doesn't know I'm engaging in acts of scientific exploration in here!" he explained, flailing his arms some to emphasize his point, "He thinks this is where I go to pour through my law books. You two tend to the reaction, I'll try to get rid of him!" he said, backing toward the door.

"Tend to the-what?!" Marty exclaimed in panic, "Can't we just start over after he's gone?"

Emmett shook his head. "It's too late, the reaction's already started! Don't worry, I'll help you out where I can."

"But-" Emma and Marty both started to say before they heard Emmett's father shouting again.

"EMMETT!"

The slight wince and look of dread on Emmett's face immediately told them that he would not be there to help them much. They were on their own as he darted out of the room. "Uh...coming, father!"

"Uh, Em?"

"Yeah?"

"Did you get _any_ of what he said?"

"Um... No."

"What?!" quipped Marty, "I thought you were supposed to be good at science!"

"Well, I can't help it if I don't work well under stress, Marty! I'm a high school student, not a doctor!"

"Great. What do we do now?!"

"I don't know!"

"Law may be your BURNING passion, father, but it is not mine!"

"'Burning...?' Huh? Oh! The bellows!" Emma yelped.

"I'm on it!" Marty replied.

"You have no idea what kind of PRESSURE I'm under!"

"Pressure, Em!"

"Got it!"

Soon they had gotten the hang of listening for Emmett's instructions, sprinkled throughout his argument with his father in phrases such as "Can't you see this is EATING me up inside?!" and "I'm not another one of your staffers who SPINS around you like a top!" while his father seemed to become less coherent the more he tried to lecture his son. When Emmett had heard a significant number of chimes from the gauge measuring the amount of rocket fuel created, he found his way out of the fight.

"Aaah! I'm afraid we'll have to take this up later, Pop! My soup's about to boil over!" he said, turning to run back into the lab.

"WHAT?! This isn't over, young man!"

"Whew!" he exclaimed after he had closed and locked the door behind him.

Emma and Marty exchanged sympathetic glances. "Are you okay?" Marty started, "You and your dad sounded-"

"It was an argument we should've had a long time ago. We—" Emmett took one look around at the lab and his eyes went wide in horror. "D'oh!" He set to work performing all of the same actions Marty and Emma had, but quicker and with a more developed sense of timing, letting out a frustrated groan as he did so.

"What?" Marty asked.

Emma ducked away from the generator, moving back toward Marty as Emmett furiously cranked the lever around for several rotations until the generator sparked with a loud CRACK. He shielded his eyes from the electricity surging from the machine, thenwhen it had finished sparking, straightened up and looked back at the jug of rocket fuel in awe. "Eureka! Now all we need to do is fuel up the old drill and you and I can—"

"And _Rose_ and _I_ can take it and go," Marty said, correcting him.

Emmett stared blankly at him, taken aback by his friend's sudden skittishness. "But... Don't you want to test it first?" he asked.

"There's no time!" Emma objected.

"The last train for D.C. leaves in just a few minutes and-"

"Oh, right! You've got to get this baby to the U.S. Patent Office!" said Emmett.

"Right..."

"So tell me, Michael, Rose-When can I expect to hear back from the Patent Office?"

"Oh...in about... I'd say..." Marty hesitated, feeling the intense amount of stress on him when Emmett looked him in the eyes with an inspiring expression of optimism. Emma gave him a wide-eyed glance and softly shook her head in caution, mouthing the word "no" just as he sighed in resignation and hung his head. "I... I can't."

The red-headed boy blinked in confusion. "Huh?"

"Emmett, we're not _from_ the patent office," he explained.

Emmett furrowed his brow, "I...I don't understand..."

"I-I lied to you. We both did," Marty said, nodding toward Emma.

"But...we didn't want to," she added, fidgeting anxiously with her hands. "It was just..."

"It was the only way we could get you to trust us," said Marty, "See, there's somebody who's in trouble..."

"Someone _very_ important to us..." Emma explained.

"And I can't tell you who, but we need to save him. Tonight."

"And we need your invention to do it."

"I'll get it back to you, I-I promise..." Marty affirmed, loading the rocket drill onto a freight dolly as he spoke. "And Emmett? You're gonna be a GREAT inventor," he added, trying to sound enthusiastic, as though maybe it would help his best friend hurt a bit less. Emmett looked away from them.

Ready to move after securing the drill and fuel to the dolly, Marty and Emma started to walk out of the lab when Emmett shouted "Wait!" They did, stopping in their tracks and looking off to the side, but avoiding making eye contact with the young version of Doc in case he was angry or hurt by what they'd done to him. But Emmett was smiling, and even though he looked slightly uncomfortable, it seemed like he knew they were just doing what was necessary as he advised them. "Keep the throttle at about eight."

Neither of the time travelers said a word, but they did look up and back over their shoulders, each grinning at the young scientist before continuing on their way.


End file.
